When breaking into the psychedelic rock community as an artist, there’s not exactly a blueprint on how to do it or from where to draw inspiration. For Cardiff-based psych artist WoodooMan, the best process is to just jump in headfirst and work out the kinks in the process. Iwan Ap Huw Morgan got his start in the ‘90s with Mondo Trans Shop and has been going ever since; with his latest album under the WoodooMan name, the enigmatically-titled Y Nos, there’s plenty of experience under his belt. Working as a rock album first and a psychedelic trip into WoodooMan’s mind second, Y Nos is certain to scratch an itch for a wide breadth of genre fans.
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“Long Time Ago” opens the album and works as close to a prologue for the project as possible. An eerie guitar comes into focus before drums and guitar slam their way in as Black Sabbath a way as possible, and Morgan declares “It was a long time ago, makes me feel so young. It was a long time ago, makes me feel like a child.” The mission statement echoes across wavy guitars, the hypnotic bass groove welcoming listeners into Y Nos. “Dust Again” doubles down on the shredding guitars and adds an echoing atmosphere of wailing backing vocals that create another layer for the wild production to play around with. “Father Sun” is a brief and funky bass-driven jam session of a song, that grows its lyrics into an almost chant by the end of it via repetition. A lot of the album is repetitive in its phrases and if it weren’t for the production, it might get old but there’s something more to the use of repeated phrases than what could otherwise be called uninspired lyricism. Allowing the lyrics to become a hypnotic trance through the prose is a great choice, and it elevates Y Nos in every instance.
BANDCAMP: https://woodooman.bandcamp.com/album/y-nos
“On This Train” lends itself to being maybe the most anthem-friendly of the songs on the album, and “In the Night” piggybacks off of it to become a much-needed respite from the harder electronic direction the album had been going thus far; a softer, acoustic entry is necessary to work as the calm before the storm. “Across the Mists of Time” is another madcap, haunting addition to the heavier tracks on the album that will truly meddle with the mindset of listeners. “All Night Long” is another entry that pushes the bassline to the absolute max, and it works as a standout because of this. Eerie vocals follow Morgan’s in the chorus, giving this follow-up to “…Mists of Time” that much more power. “Scarlet Woman” lends itself to an almost folk-driven structure, bringing back a softer side of WoodooMan, which effortlessly transitions into the most powerful track of the album, “Y Nos Mewn Cariad.”
The closing track is a total outlier from the rest of the album in the best of ways; listeners will be blindsided by this anthem, as it’s sung entirely in Welsh, but fret not — it uses its power as the final track on Y Nos to bring everything together aesthetically as well as sonically. The production tweaks present on everything across the album make their presence known and the final touches of a twinkling sonic soundscape boost WoodooMan’s Y Nos into the unknown and beyond.
Chadwick Easton